Twilight Zone: The Curly Oakwood Show
by Dean Fiora
Summary: A right-wing talk-radio host gets a harrowing dose of reality when he mysteriously transforms into 1) a young Black man in police custody, 2) a Muslim detainee at Guantanamo, and 3) a Mexican immigrant pursued by Klansmen. Inspired by the TZ episode, "A Quality of Mercy."


**THE CURLY OAKWOOD SHOW**

by Dean Fiora

"The liberals are at it again, folks! This time, they want to take away your God-given right to salute the flag. I swear, there's no depth to which these people won't stoop. All right, let's take a call. Chet in Dallas, you're on the air."

"Hi, Curly! Man, I agree with everythin' you say. These damn lib'ruls ain't gonna be happy 'til America's in flames. What the hell's wrong with those people?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Chet. Some people just don't know how to be patriotic. Fortunately, there are plenty of people like you and me that do. Thanks for the call." He looked at the list of callers on the computer screen before him. "Oh, looky here, folks! There's a genuine liberal on the line! Go ahead, Craig in Albany."

"Hello, Mr. Oakwood. Are you honestly unaware of how often the things you say are just wrong? Nobody wants to take away your right to salute the flag! The Individual Rights Project merely filed a court brief, stating that no one should be legally required to do so."

"Folks, are you listening to this commie drivel? Let me tell you something, Craig: a lot of good people fought and died for your right to salute the flag! How dare you dishonor their memories by refusing to do so?"

"What are you talking…?"

"My grandfather took a bullet fighting the Japs!"

"Oh, yeah? Well, you never did."

Oakwood's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"Why didn't you go to Vietnam again? Oh, that's right: your daddy was a media tycoon who got you three deferments."

"Get your pinko ass off my phone, Craig! Oh, and try a little red meat; your brain could use the protein."

And so it went, three hours a day, five days a week, on 1,200 radio stations from coast to coast. "The Curly Oakwood Show" had been around for 25 years and made its host a rich man off the lies and propaganda that he spread against millions of his fellow citizens—or as Oakwood sneeringly called them, "the liberals."

At 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Oakwood removed his headphones, stood up, stretched, and heaved a complacent sigh. His producer gave him the "OK" sign. "Another great show, Curly!"

Oakwood grinned. "You expected less?"

He took the elevator to the ground floor 32 stories below, waving to the concierge as he exited the building. Outside, Oakwood lit one of his trademark cigars and puffed contentedly. By age 40, he had harnessed the anger of everyday Americans and parlayed it into a broadcasting empire and numerous electoral victories for the political candidates he championed. Following his party's takeover of Congress, Oakwood became known as "The Majority Maker." For a time, it replaced his other nickname, "The Conservative Crusader."

His beloved America had sagged under the weight of entitled minorities, baby-killing feminists, militant vegetarians, illegal immigrants, pampered peaceniks, and other blood-suckers. Curly Oakwood was the spokesman for real Americans—the humble, hard-working men and women who knew that God existed and were unafraid to sing their hearts out when the National Anthem played. America was the greatest country on Earth, and as long as those disgusting perverts on the left refused to recognize that fact, he would do his best to ensure that their voices went unheard.

Oakwood tossed his cigar butt on the sidewalk and crushed it under his shoe before hailing a cab. It was Thursday, which meant a night with his favorite call girl.

She left his penthouse at 11:30. They parted company as they always did: with a kiss at Oakwood's front door. As he stuck his tongue in her mouth, she breathed through her nose to avoid the nauseating taste of cigars on his breath. It was bad enough that he weighed 300 pounds and sweated like a greasy pig, but did he have to smoke too? Oh, well. It was a thousand bucks for just six hours of work.

After an evening with Patti, it never took him long to fall asleep. Oakwood stretched out across his king-sized bed, cocooned in his $750 silk pajamas, and was soon snoring like a breeder hog.

"Hey! Wake your ass up!" 

"Huh?" Jolted from his sleep, Oakwood realized that he was no longer in bed. He sat on a rickety metal chair in front of a grey metal table. He blinked rapidly and looked around. He was in a brightly lit room with off-white walls and a huge mirror. Two stern-looking middle-aged men hovered over him. Each wore slacks, a white button-down shirt, and a navy blue necktie. They also wore badges that identified them as police detectives.

"You don't sleep until we say you can sleep!"

"W-where am I?"

Chuckling, he looked at his partner. "Can you believe this guy?"

The second detective, who stood opposite Oakwood, leaned over the table until their faces were just inches apart. He spoke through clenched teeth. "Look, asshole, a 90-year-old woman was beaten to a pulp tonight for the twenty bucks in her purse. We have a witness who puts you at the scene. So why'd you do it, huh? Did your welfare check run out? You needed the money for crack?"

Sweat pouring down his face, Oakwood sniveled, "I-I don't know what you're talking about. What old woman?"

"You think you're smart, don't you? Sitting there on your black ass, acting all innocent."

"B-black? I'm not black!"

Both detectives laughed. "Will you listen to this guy? You might not want to be black, but that's what you are." He spun Oakwood's chair around. "Take a look in the mirror."

Oakwood gasped at his reflection. The face that stared back at him was, indeed, African-American. But that was impossible! He must be having a bad dream. "That's it, I'm having a bad dream. I was in bed, I went to sleep. This is a nightmare."

A detective said, "Oh, it's going to be a nightmare if you don't start talking."

"Yeah," said the other, "I'm getting tired of this shit." With this thumb and forefinger, he grabbed Oakwood's chain and craned his neck back. "Now, are you going to start flapping those fat-ass lips of yours, or do we have to enhance the interview?"

Oakwood was crying now. "I don't know anything."

The detective threw his arms up in the air and looked at his partner. "Shall we?"

They handcuffed Oakwood and brought him to a nearby bathroom. "On your knees, jungle bunny!" A frightened Oakwood knelt down and gasped as one of the detectives yanked his pants down around his knees, exposing his buttocks and genitals.

"W-what are you doing?"

The detective smirked. "So much for these guys having big dicks."

The other detective, from behind Oakwood, reached around his head. He clutched a nightstick. "This is your last chance, sambo. Start talking or…." He waved the nightstick.

A sniveling Oakwood sobbed, "Please! I don't know what's going on."

The detective heaved a sigh. "Have it your way."

Oakwood's eyes opened into tea saucers when he felt something cold and hard entering his rectum. He emitted a gasp, followed by a pained shriek, as the cop jammed his nightstick into what Oakwood liked to call "an exit, not an entrance" when he railed against equality for GLBTs.

"You going to talk now, boy? I'll shove this thing so far up your ass, it'll pop out of your mouth!"

But he was incapable of articulate speech. Instead, Oakwood yowled in mortal agony as the snarling detective violently thrust the nightstick into his anal opening. He could feel blood trickling down his rear thighs. The pain was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

The detective in front of Oakwood said, "We know it was you, you black bastard! You're going to pay for what you did to that old woman."

Oakwood tried to protest that he hadn't done anything, but was sobbing too hard to speak.

The pain ebbed. When he opened his eyes, the detectives were gone. He was no longer in the police bathroom. His legs crossed, Oakwood sat in a cage too small to stand up in. It was on a field of asphalt. Above him, the sun shone in a cloudless sky. Sweating profusely in the 90-degree heat, Oakwood noticed that he was dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Many other cages surrounded his, each containing its own inmate. From what Oakwood saw, they were all of Middle Eastern descent.

A young man in an Army uniform approached his cage. "How ya doin', hadji?"

Oakwood looked up at the soldier. "Are-are you talking to me?"

"Sorry, I don't speak towelhead. You want to talk to me, your ass better learn English."

"What do you mean? I'm speaking English!"

The soldier snorted. "No idea what you're saying, but it's gotta be a lie. Let me guess: you and your buddies didn't try to blow up any shopping mall. You don't belong in Guantanamo. We got the wrong guys. Right, hadji?"

"G-Guantanamo?"

"I know you can't understand a word I'm saying, but you'll be gettin' outta that cage soon." The soldier grinned maniacally. "I don't think you're gonna like your new accommodations any better, though. See ya soon, hadji!"

As the solider walked away whistling, a panicked Oakwood tried to assess his situation. Nothing made sense. His rectum still throbbed from the torture he had received from those cops. And now he was in Guantanamo? How could this be happening? He was Curly Oakwood, the Conservative Crusader! He was in the Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Conservative politicians praised him on the floor of Congress. How could he just be taken from his bed and subjected to this torture? It's not like he was a terrorist or anything.

An hour later, the soldier returned with two others. They unlocked Oakwood's cage, put him in shackles, and led him to a windowless gray building. They stood in a mid-sized room with a wooden table in the middle. A steel ring was fastened to either side of the table's rear while a metal bar lay across its far side. The soldiers laid Oakwood on the table, facing up. They shackled his wrists to the rings and his feet to the bar. Whimpering in fright, Oakwood looked pleadingly at his captors.

He heard water running. When it stopped, a soldier approached the table and placed a dry cloth over his face. Next, he felt the water being poured into his mouth and nose. Oakwood's gag reflex kicked in as he sputtered and struggled against his shackles. He was drowning! Good god, they were going to kill him!

"That's what you get for messin' with America, hadji! You think we're gonna take this shit from a bunch of goddamned camel-jockeys? Think again, asshole!"

He poured more water. Oakwood's wrists and ankles bled as he thrashed against his shackles in a desperate attempt to escape the waterboarding. Never had he experienced such unadulterated terror. And yet, on the air, Oakwood had gleefully praised the torture and killing of Arab Muslims. After all, he argued, America was at war with these terrorists, so the normal rules of engagement did not apply. "Waterboard them all," he had proclaimed. And millions cheered him on.

Suddenly, Oakwood was dry. The cloth has disappeared from his face and he stood in the barren wasteland of a desert at twilight. He wore the filthy, tattered clothes of a dirt-poor peon. And he stood face to face with three men in white sheets and pointed hoods. Each had a rifle pointed at him.

One of them spoke. "Where you think you're going, Pedro? Sneaking into the country illegally? Not today, by god!"

Oakwood held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, but the men were having none of it. Before he could move, they were upon him. They knocked him to the ground and whooped it up as their heavy boots kicked his beleaguered form. Oakwood curled up into the fetal position and cried out with each kick that pummeled his back, head, legs, and rear. When the kicking stopped, one of the men turned Oakwood over on his back and placed his rifle barrel in the man's mouth. Oakwood shook his head and spoke around the barrel, pleading for his life.

The man laughed. "Listen to this, boys. Pedro here's talking to us in Spic. Like we'd ever learn that shit."

"Blow his damn brains out," said another.

"What brains?" said the third man. They all laughed.

The Klansman with the gun growled, "Say your prayers, wetback."

The barrel still in his mouth, Oakwood screamed as the man pulled the trigger. His bowels emptied as he heard the loud bang of the gun firing. Then everything went dark.

He sat up in bed, sweat-covered, his heart pounding, shaking from head to toe. He gained the presence of mind to turn a lamp on. When its light bathed the room, Oakwood realized that he was at home. He ran his hand across his chest and felt the reassuring softness of his pajamas.

He laughed in relief. "It was just a dream! I was in bed the whole time."

Then he looked at his wrists; they had ligature marks. In dread, he lifted the cuffs of his pajama pants and screamed. His ankles had ligature marks, too! He felt a dull throbbing in his rectum and saw blood on the sheets where he sat. He also tasted lead in his mouth, as if a gun barrel had been stuck into it.

Oakwood's head turned frantically around the room, but his torturers weren't there. He was alone. He laid back, stared blankly at the ceiling, and cried like he had never cried before.

At 12:00 noon, his show intro played. It was a classic-rock-styled guitar riff over which an announcer said, "And now, ladies and gentlemen: the Conservative Crusader, the Man You Love to Love, Curly Oakwood!"

Normally, he delivered a blustery, arrogant greeting to his audience. But not today.

"Ladies and gentlemen: for the last 25 years, I've shared my political and social views with you. I've encouraged you to hate and distrust people who don't see things my way. I've condemned those people for a lack of patriotism. I've helped elect members of Congress who were clearly insane, and who had ties to White Nationalist groups. Three times in last decade, mass shootings have occurred in my name. The fact of the matter is, I'm a huge part of the problem."

Looking across the table at his producer, Oakwood chuckled. "Right now, my producer is frantically waving at me and mouthing the words, 'What are you doing?' What I'm doing, for the first time in my life, is the right thing.

"Last night, I had what I can only call an epiphany. I won't bore you with the details. Let's just say, something happened to show me how unbelievably wrong I've been. No more will I preach intolerance and hate. No more will I use the publicly-owned airwaves to demonize millions of members of that public. As of today, I'm going off the air."

He took a deep breath and continued. "I don't know how many years I have left, but I plan to spend them doing everything I can to unravel my toxic legacy. I've sold you a fake bill of goods. For that, I'm truly sorry. Please, folks, don't use me as an excuse to hate. It's not what I want, not anymore. If you see someone who looks different than you, say hello, maybe get that person into a conversation. I bet you'll find you have a lot in common. As for me, I'm done with hate speech. I thank each and every one of you for your support, but I must take my leave. Goodbye."

He switched off the microphone, removed his headset, and stood up.

"Curly," his producer exclaimed. "What are you doing, man? You're on the air!"

"No, I'm not." He walked toward the studio door. As he stepped into the hallway, the frenzied producer ran a commercial.

A middle-aged man in a suit and tie stormed up to him: the network's president. "Oakwood, what the hell are you doing? Get back in that studio now!"

"Sorry, Frank, no can do."

"What the hell is wrong with you? This is a breach of your contract!"

"I can't do this anymore. I just can't." He headed down the corridor.

"I'm gonna sue your ass!"

"Go right ahead."

As the unplanned commercial break aired, the network's programming manager ran into the studio and took Oakwood's seat. He donned the headset and switched on the microphone, having no idea of what to tell the audience.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is Paul Trevor, Programming Manager of the Sunset Radio Network. On behalf of Curly Oakwood, I'd like to apologize for his sudden absence. We believe he may be experiencing a mental-health issue. So I'll be filling in today, and possibly tomorrow."

Oakwood left the building, feeling more at peace than he had in years.


End file.
